academicstraykittie

[academicstraykittie]

[academicstraykittie]

My favourite part of the local Roman Britain musuem I visited for my birthday was a ~2000 year old tile ruined by a dog. You can even see a rock lodged in as if the workers tried to scare it off.

The best part is that this isn't a rare find. They had a whole wall of tiles ruined by pets. Imagine how many there were for us to find so many ~2000 years later...

[academicstraykittie]

Reality demands

that we also mention this:

Life goes on.

It continues at Cannae and Borodino,

at Kosovo Polje and Guernica.

There's a gas station

on a little square in Jericho,

and wet paint

on park benches in Bila Hora.

Letters fly back and forth

between Pearl Harbor and Hastings,

a moving van passes

beneath the eye of the lion at Chaeronea,

and the blooming orchards near Verdun

cannot escape

the approaching atmospheric front.

There is so much Everything

that Nothing is hidden quite nicely.

Music pours

from the yachts moored at Actium

and couples dance on the sunlit decks.

So much is always going on,

that it must be going on all over.

Where not a stone still stands,

you see the Ice Cream Man

besieged by children.

Where Hiroshima had been

Hiroshima is again,

producing many products

for everyday use.

This terrifying world is not devoid of charms,

of the mornings

that make waking up worthwhile.

The grass is green

on Maciejowice's fields,

and it is studded with dew,

as is normal grass.

Perhaps all fields are battlefields,

those we remember

and those that are forgotten:

the birch forests and the cedar forests,

the snow and the sand, the iridescent swamps

and the canyons of black defeat,

where now, when the need strikes, you don't cower

under a bush but squat behind it.

What moral flows from this? Probably none.

Only that blood flows, drying quickly,

and, as always, a few rivers, a few clouds.

On tragic mountain passes

the wind rips hats from unwitting heads

and we can't help

laughing at that.

[academicstraykittie]

I have walked a great while over the snow,

And I am not tall nor strong.

My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set,

And the way was hard and long.

I have wandered over the fruitful earth,

But I never came here before.

Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

The cutting wind is a cruel foe.

I dare not stand in the blast.

My hands are stone, and my voice a groan,

And the worst of death is past.

I am but a little maiden still,

My little white feet are sore.

Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

Her voice was the voice that women have,

Who plead for their heart's desire.

She came—she came—and the quivering flame

Sunk and died in the fire.

It never was lit again on my hearth

Since I hurried across the floor,

To lift her over the threshold, and let her in at the door.

.

.

The Witch by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

.

.

[academicstraykittie]

Reality demands

that we also mention this:

Life goes on.

It continues at Cannae and Borodino,

at Kosovo Polje and Guernica.

There's a gas station

on a little square in Jericho,

and wet paint

on park benches in Bila Hora.

Letters fly back and forth

between Pearl Harbor and Hastings,

a moving van passes

beneath the eye of the lion at Chaeronea,

and the blooming orchards near Verdun

cannot escape

the approaching atmospheric front.

There is so much Everything

that Nothing is hidden quite nicely.

Music pours

from the yachts moored at Actium

and couples dance on the sunlit decks.

So much is always going on,

that it must be going on all over.

Where not a stone still stands,

you see the Ice Cream Man

besieged by children.

Where Hiroshima had been

Hiroshima is again,

producing many products

for everyday use.

This terrifying world is not devoid of charms,

of the mornings

that make waking up worthwhile.

The grass is green

on Maciejowice's fields,

and it is studded with dew,

as is normal grass.

Perhaps all fields are battlefields,

those we remember

and those that are forgotten:

the birch forests and the cedar forests,

the snow and the sand, the iridescent swamps

and the canyons of black defeat,

where now, when the need strikes, you don't cower

under a bush but squat behind it.

What moral flows from this? Probably none.

Only that blood flows, drying quickly,

and, as always, a few rivers, a few clouds.

On tragic mountain passes

the wind rips hats from unwitting heads

and we can't help

laughing at that.

.

.

Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

by Wisława Szymborska

.

.

[academicstraykittie]

Me @ everyone

[academicstraykittie]

cat can:

snuggle

biting you

eat food AND plastic

so scared of car sounds

locate Bug

Make sounds

[academicstraykittie]

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[academicstraykittie]

You don't have to force yourself to bounce back so quickly. I read something recently that said "when you come in from a rainstorm, you don't expect yourself to be dry and warm right away", and it really resonated with me. It's okay to take time to dry off and warm up. Take the time you need to process what happened to you.

[academicstraykittie]

Hi yeah scientists have checked and it turns out there is nothing better than when a cat has been lying down, gets up, does a big stretch and turns around just to lie down again. Source? Scientists I just said that.

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